The barrel of a XM1203 none-line-of-sight cannon frames the U.S. Capitol on June 11, 2008, on the National Mall. The Army displayed it's first Future Combat System (FCS) Manned Ground Vehicle on the mall.

Gates hits army's top program

Of the more than 50 cuts and other radical changes to Pentagon weapons systems that were announced last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, he said reshaping the Army’s Future Combat System was the most difficult.

The Army’s top leaders defended their major modernization program — essentially a new family of combat vehicles, robots and sensors connected by a computer network. The program was conceived in 2001 to provide a lighter, faster way to deploy an Army brigade, with systems that would allow war fighters to see and respond to threats before they became deadly.

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Gates, in a wide-ranging interview with reporters after announcing his proposed cuts, said he spent more time discussing the Future Combat System than any other topic with Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and Secretary Pete Geren. Yet he had harsh words for the program, striking down its concept and execution.

After nine years and $15 billion spent in development, the program still wasn’t tackling the lessons learned in recent wars, Gates said. It was relying too heavily on the network to detect and stave off threats and did not focus enough on protecting forces after a blast had occurred.

For instance, he said, even though the Army had altered the program over the past 18 months, the infantry fighting vehicle was still 18 inches off the ground with a flat bottom — a fat, juicy target for improvised explosive devices, commonly known as IEDs — the homemade roadside bombs that have been a weapon of choice for insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan for about five years.

The military has pushed for vehicles with V-shaped hulls to better survive blasts, but that has made the vehicles too heavy and cumbersome for guerrilla-style conflicts, yet not heavy enough for more conventional fighting, said Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Heavier vehicles also have encountered problems climbing the steep, rugged mountains of Afghanistan.

The program had technical difficulties, too. Gates said he needed “more confidence in the program strategy, requirements and maturity of the technologies before proceeding further.”

With that in mind, he recommended ending the vehicle part of FCS so Pentagon planners could reassess the Army’s needs and industry’s technologies before launching a new competition.

Officials at Boeing Co., the program’s lead contractor, said the company was still studying the impact on the company and its products.

But an official familiar with the program disputed the assertion that the design of the infantry vehicle made it less suitable for new styles of warfare.

“We’ve taken a mind-over-mass approach that incorporates lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, including V-shaped hulls,” advanced armor and other soldier protection technologies, he said.

The Army is staying mum, too, licking its wounds and reviewing the decisions.